March 10, 2011

Baby Shower Invitations / How to simplify a project with multiples

Hello everyone!!! I'm so thrilled, excited and honored to be a guest designer here at She's a Sassy Lady today!!  I've been a follower of this amazing blog for quite some time - so to be designing here is just so cool! :-)
Anyway, on to my project - I made baby shower invitations for our daughter last September so I thought I would revisit this for today since I have been out-of-state since March 2nd and I don't have access to my craft room!  She chose owls as her theme so we found an adorable one on Create a Critter. In this post, I will be showing you how to create multiples of images and layers so that you can assemble lots of cards more quickly.  We started out thinking that we would only need about 30 of these invites, but once we started preparing our guest list....... ummmm...... we found out that we were going to need about 100!! Yikes! (We have a big family and lots of friends!) Good thing I had my Gypsy to make this easy! Here we go!


Here are pics of the completed invites. We varied the background colors so they wouldn't all be the same. (My daughter's idea!)

These were some of the other color combos that we tried.

We ultimately decided on these colors.

This was how I laid out my paper when I was ready to cut. I had already figured how many of each sheet I would need so I simply needed to just load my mat each time and cut using my Gypsy. A little prep work made it so easy!!



These are pics of the inside. The "It's a Boy" and "You're invited to a baby shower" stamps are from a Martha Stewart set. The "registered at" stamp is from MFT Stamps. I cut the onesie from the New Arrival Cartridge to use for additional information that we needed to tell the guests.  I used the Cricut markers first, then I cut so it would be outlined. I really like how this looks!  I stamped "note" on the onesie as a heading for the additional info. (I only remember that this stamp is from a Stampendous set.)

This is the label on the front of the card that says "Whoooo's having a Baby Shower?" I wrote "Whoooo's having a" and then stamped "Baby Shower".  Notice that I was able to make sure that I was cutting on an 8.5x11 size paper since that is the size of white cardstock that I had. This label is on Fabulous Finds. (I love that cartridge!)

Once again, I had white cardstock in 8.5x11, so I positioned the onesies to fit within that size. The Gypsy makes it so easy!

The pocket on the inside of the invite is just a piece of cardstock cut to size. Since I was making 100 of these, using my Gypsy made it way easier to do this instead of cutting them all individually. This pic is for the larger pocket - (I made 2 different card sizes.)  The pic below is for the smaller pocket.


When I create a file that I am going to use to cut out multiples of layers, I always have one page that contains all the layers if possible.  That way, if I need to make just one more of something, I don't need to cut out whole pages of layers. I usually make this the first page of my file. 

These next few pics are showing how multiples of layers can be positioned on your paper to minimize waste.



Look at all those little feet and beaks! I was able to cut out 40 sets from one 12x12 piece of paper! 

Here they are all finished and ready to address and mail! Whew!! This was a fun project and I was able to do it without going crazy because of my Gypsy!  Thanks so much for stopping by today and I would love to hear your comments as well as questions, if you have any! Stop by my blog anytime to see some other projects that I have done - Java Jen Creations . I would love to hear from you!  Have a crafty day!!

10 comments:

Sheila aka SassyLady said...

What wonderful invitations! ADORABLE. Love your color choices too. You are more ambitious than I for sure! Thanks for the great step by step tutorial to help us along the way.

Cathy said...

great job on the cards and the organization.I have Create a critter and i love it.

Angi Barrs said...

Adorable owls. Love this. When I'm off this summer I need to get brave and try creating multiples. :)

Granny said...

These are such cute little invitations. TFS

Anonymous said...

These are adorable. So many thanks for the Tute... Sue

Unknown said...

What a great idea for mass producing your invites!!! Love the owls ~ they are super cute!!!

Thanks for sharing!

papillon digital design said...

These are so cute! Fantastic job! TFS

Lanita said...

Those are the cutest cards! I've never really liked owls but after seeing all the creations with owls lately, I'm changing my mind. Thanks for sharing the great tutorial.

SherriC. said...

these are soooo soooo cute, I really don't remember how to craft without my Gypsy.LOL
love the colours!!!!

Anonymous said...

Loll love how you broke a big project down into doable steps